


Memoirs of the Heir

by tokii



Series: 壊れた方 [27]
Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 01:17:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21437803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokii/pseuds/tokii
Summary: Damian walks his own path as the Batman and is visited by an old friend.Tag: Dark Purple (Moderate)
Series: 壊れた方 [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1542805





	Memoirs of the Heir

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sophisthoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophisthoe/gifts).

Memoirs of the Heir

Krrzz. “Reports of Batman’s response to crime in Gotham has been met with some criticism by public officials and…”

Krrzzz. “I don’t know, Brian. The shooting at Gotham’s City Orphanage has left the public questioning the Batman’s methods. I mean, come on, he let a child die…”

Krzz. “I’ll tell you this, the day that Penguin becomes mayor of Gotham is the day that we’ll see Batman parading through the streets hand-in-hand with the GCPD…”

Krrzzz. “Batman? He needs as much psychiatric care as his victims do. This is a markedly different vigilante than the one we saw take up the cape 35 years ago…”

Krrzzchht. “In recent weeks, the escapades of the vigilante known as the Batman have grown increasingly more violent, giving cause for public concern and contributing to the disdain already harbored by the Gotham City Police Department toward costumed heroes. Commissioner Duke Thomas, previously known as the vigilante, the Signal, before running for city office, had this to say about the current Batman, ‘The actions of Gotham’s so-called Dark Knight are unacceptable. The GCPD and I are doing everything in our power to have this deranged criminal caught and charged for his crimes against Gotham. The once acceptable intervention of masked heroes has come to an end, and the GCPD no longer sanctions the violent actions of the Batman. And to you, Batman, I remind you that you have lost allies in both the Justice League and the Titans, and you have now just made an enemy of the GCPD. You are without friends, and you will be caught…’ The release of this statement by the commissioner has sparked controversy among Gothamites, and recent public opinion polls indicate that popularity of the caped crusader has dropped 37 points. Is this the end of Gotham’s Batman? Be sure to call in and…”

Krackkk. The radio fizzles, cracked glass splintering beneath the weight of Damian’s gloved fist. Rain beats heavily against the windshield of the Batmobile, floodlights filling the tangled forest behind the manor. Shards from the monitor bounce up from the ruddy floorboard as Damian yanks the wheel to miss the blurred outline of a tree. He’s thrown into the door and groans breathlessly, his injured side spurting red as the tires catch the muddied road. He sucks his teeth as he presses his palm against his leaking abdomen, vision popping with lights as the Batmobile breaks the threshold of the cave. He is Damian Wayne, former leader of the League of Assassins, grandson of the Demon, and sole heir to the mantle of the Bat.

Fuck. The door to the cave falls open and Damian catches himself against the frame, clicking his tongue in self-admonishment. His side burns, blood dribbling down his waist before splashing to the pitted floor. Damian allows it, head resting against the damp wall, fist clenching as the splatters form Rorschach blots on the cave stone. Red globules fill empty space, first collecting in the shape of a bat, then a mask. His father’s eyes stare up at him from the splattered inkblots, narrowed with a solemn disappointment. Damian’s pulse weakens, the steady metronome of blood on rock slowing. The dripping echo crashes against the ceiling loudly enough that Damian winces at the din, unable to ignore its incessant disruption of his thoughts. His father looks at him from the blackened pool, his eyes set hard on Damian’s youthful face. Damian senses his apathy from beyond the grave. The flawed standard of perfection set by the Batman is unattainable by all but Batman himself. The eyes begin to fill, crimson pooling in the whites, lighting the gaze ablaze. Damian presses his boot into the mirage, muddying those empty eyes that watch him. His cape drags through the mire, slewing lifeblood across the cracked stone in giant sweeps. Damian squeezes his eyes shut, strength leaking through his blanched fingers. He cannot seem to escape his father’s presence. The shadow that follows him in alleyways. The steely voice that whispers to him from midnight winds. The eyes that wait for him in the emptiness of the cave, peering through the costumed cases, watching from behind the empty masks. _He_ waits, patiently. His father’s ghost waits for him to fail.

Damian drags his hand across the surgical table, fumbling for gauze, instruments clattering across the stained, aluminum countertop. His fingers brush against cloth beneath the litter, the only space unkept in the cave. Maybe it’s because it’s the only area he has use for. You bleed, you mend, you fight, and so on. As the years have passed, the monotony of his routine is now only nursed by a palliative of more blood and fighting. Maybe that’s why the eyes continue to stare. Damian has long since abandoned the notion of fighting for justice. Violence was never simply a hazardous companion to vigilantism, or a necessity of serving the greater good – as his father insisted. No, the allure of the fight, of wetting your knuckles in the “name of justice,” this had always been a sedative. A. numbing outlet. The violence they wrought in the name of peace was only ever a tranquilizer for the spirit – souls twisted by trauma, only settled by the spilling of blood. Damian presses the gauze between his teeth and rips off his vest, the Rorschach splatters now forming at his feet. A staple finds his broken skin, the clacking of metal now joining the dripping in the cave, once again fuzzing his thoughts with noise. Another staple, and Damian exhales a pained breath as the eyes look up once more through the bloodied veil on the floor. His thoughts blend with the staccato rhythm bouncing off the waters of the cave. Staple, drip, staple, drip. His father’s eyes become fiercer still and Damian plops the stapler into the heart of the veil, the image melting back into the earth.

An anodyne for broken men. That’s what it was. All of his father’s exploits, all his bravado, all his efforts… it all amounted to simply that. An escape for little boys who couldn’t face the evil in the world, unless they broke it with their fists. Bruce’s obsession had corrupted all of Damian’s brothers; the veiled premise had eaten its way into their hearts, darkening their minds. And yet, after realizing the vanity shrouded in Bruce’s cause, they were still too weak to stand fast. They failed to acknowledge the necessity of it all, despite their indoctrination. Jason, maybe, was capable at one point. But they have all since slipped into the mundanity of love and promises of empty futures. Jason shares his life with Kira and their twins, and is happy to be whored by the government, laundering pretense to enemies of the state. Dick remains infatuated with the woman he first laid his eyes on, despite her heart being tethered to her mind – forever laid out of his reach. The circus boy still leads with that stupid, bursting heart of his, not realizing he’s solely culpable for his failings in love. Tim teaches in some unfortunate corner of the world, spending his mornings with Stephanie and his evenings with the slime of the underworld – unofficially retired. Damian hasn’t spoken to any of them in some time. His father’s legacy is his alone by birthright. No man needs bother himself with the hazards of another man’s destiny, brother or not. They aren’t his keepers, not anymore.

Feet pitter-patter in a nearby chamber, and a form takes shape in the dimmed lighting of the cave. Alfred. He meows, and hops between the blackened, blood smatterings of days past still left on the cave floor. His tail encircles Damian’s ankle, and he purrs before wandering back into the darkness. Damian sighs, and presses his fingers to his aching eyes. He keeps the cave clean for Alfred’s sake. It makes it feel like he’s still here. Damian opens his heavy eyes, listlessly tracking the number of his shortcomings still staining the cave floor. Alfred was too good for this world. He was subjected to the darkness dragged into the Wayne home by little boys with broken souls. He was their confidant, despite their tantrums. He was the exception in their world filled with breathless nights, and painful mornings. He was their loyal constant, a balm for the endless fissuring of relational ties. Alfred was their soul, the redeeming member of their broken family. He deserved much better, much more than spending his long years sewing up the bleeding hearts of fractured men. Alfred’s purrs die amidst the massive quiet left in the cave, the hanging silence that fills every space. Damian has grown used to this silence. It’s his birthright.

The air shifts, and Damian turns his attention to the opening of the cave, his face set hard. He had grown used to reading subtle movements, the way silence sits in a cave, the way the air thins when someone takes flight. This was familiar, years of practice had made it so. The fresh oxygen he’s now drawing into his lungs, the dank, cave air left rolling atop the stained floor; these were the signs of a controlled descent. By these movements in the empty space Damian knows he isn’t alone. He doesn’t have to hear his voice to know that he’s there. Damian can tell by the way the air dances that it’s him.

Jon lowers himself to the stone floor across the corridor, delicately sidestepping a fresh puddle of black blood. He pauses to look into the dark, swirling fluid, his own face peering up at him, features distorting beneath the eerie, cave lighting. His mouth twists slightly, his brows softly drawn. Jon had always been of a tender disposition, his voice sweet, his build marred by an unassertive sagging of his broad shoulders. He had never carried himself as his father had and was a Superman of a completely different nature. If his father was a symbol of hope, Jon was a symbol of meekness. It suited him, but the Justice League thought differently. Jon looks across the floor, at the puddling left by the night’s most recent mission. Jon is able to imitate his father well enough that the world accepts him, but Damian knows better, as did the Justice League. He and Damian had grown up together, fought together. They were bound to each other as brothers, and were closer, even, at times. Jon can’t seem to tear himself from the grotesque painting of the floor to meet Damian’s eyes. In the past, Jon’s cheeriness had only been rivaled by his sullen pensiveness, which he bears now, in the curve of his large back, in the softening of his sternly taut features. He had never been able to conceal his emotions without letting them leak into his posture, or into those doe eyes of his. They were wide as the world, seeing everything. Jon was never able to hide himself because his eyes gave him away. In that way, he and his father were similar. Neither could bear wearing a mask, because they wanted to share their eyes with the world they watched over. Jon chooses to show his eyes so that people can discern their meaning, their intentions - the mulling of his soul.

Their eyes meet across the room, dank air shifting in the empty space. Damian squares his shoulders, straightening a little, prompting a quiet groan. With his chin set, they stare at each other, Damian’s face growing harder as Jon’s continues to soften. Until Jon drops his head, the façade falling with it. His shoulders curl forward gently, and he exhales a long sigh, the “S” crumpling in the lines of his suit. Sadness creases his handsome face, his youth hidden beneath the weight of the worlds he now carries. He never could quite imitate his father. Clark bore the weight well. With Jon, however, the weight of it all shows. Perhaps that’s why Damian always felt the need to protect him. Like Alfred, Jon, too, was too good for this world. He is too bright a light to be the hope of a dark and strange world such as earth. Hope requires a measure of unyielding severity. And Jon is not his father.

“Damian…” He tenderly whispers, his voice far too soft to belong to such an imposing man.

“Why are you here, Jon?” Damian huffs, the burning in his side suddenly apparent. Damian hasn’t heard Jon’s voice for some time. And it is far too painful now that he’s heard it again. Silence falls between them once again, the thickness in the air lulling in the gap. At least Jon remembers Damian enough to recognize that the question was rhetorical.

Jon winces, the pain buried within him bubbling up from the recesses to the surface, his features sharply contoured under the cave’s shadows. He holds Damian’s gaze, studying him with those bleeding, doe eyes of his. “You’re alone when you don’t have to be,” he breathes, “You don’t need to keep pushing us away. You have friends, Damian, people who love you.”

Damian clicks his tongue and relaxes his shoulders, sagging into the table while cupping his aching side. “I have no need of them. Now, tell me what you’re doing here.”

Jon lets out a frustrated laugh, his mouth widening in annoyance, perfect smile gleaming, “Damian, you don’t have to live like this. You have allies. Why do you choose to –”

“I have no allies,” Damian mutters, languidly.

“You had me!” Jon’s voice is firm, large chest raising with quick breaths. His mouth is parted slightly, and he draws his eyebrows in again, his youthfulness returning with this expression – like that of an offended child. He huffs and purses his lips, eyes flicking over Damian’s pale face. “I can’t watch you live like this, descending into the same madness that your father fell into.”

“At least I share things in common with my father, Jon.” Damian’s face is hard again, jaw clenched. He wishes Alfred were here, the man who could patch any rift. But he isn’t.

Jon’s expression flattens, but his eyes still speak. He rolls his shoulders back and clears his throat, straightening as Damian rarely ever saw him do. He’s half a foot taller, his build massive and striking, his hair dangling in curls atop his fair forehead. He really does look like his father. Jon sighs, and the heavy sag in his frame returns. His face darkens, and the youthfulness disappears once more. “I came to tell you that Saara is in Gotham. I thought you should know.” And the heavy air rolls up from the cave floor as Jon ascends, heels together, cape flowing behind his large figure. “Goodbye, Damian. I’ll leave you to your masks.”

The air shifts, the dank current dropping back down to the black, pitted stone. Damian presses his hand into his side, and the pain returns, reminding him that he feels. That he’s a man. He groans, and clicks his tongue, his hand dropping from his side. His father’s eyes have dried into the floor, swirled into an otherworldly sort of distortion, looking up at him crookedly from beyond the veil. They judge him, waiting for him to falter. Damian sucks in an uneasy breath and pushes his father’s presence from his mind, excising his tumorous spirit. Damian is his father’s son, destined to walk in his footsteps. Such is his birthright.

Damian glances at the cowl resting in a puddle of his making. He watches it, the legacy left by his father for him alone to bear. Damian sighs, the pain in his side sharpening. He is morbidly aware of what this path entails. In this respect, Damian is more keenly sighted than his father ever was. He will not allow his friends to suffer the same peril that befell his father’s allies, regardless of the righteousness of the cause. Damian could not bear it. By his choosing, he is unburdened by this responsibility for others. Left alone to fight a war that will ultimately lead to his demise. Such is the way of things.


End file.
